Little Ms Popular
by pluckita
Summary: Sometimes its hard to see what's in front of you. Little Ms. Popular, Bella Swan, finds herself in a rough situation and enlists the help of dork-with-potential Edward to get her out. What she gets is a lot more than she bargained for.
1. Story Summary

**Little Ms. Popular:**

Being the new girl in school is never easy, especially when you've set your sights high. Bella Swan has decided that this will be her year. This will be the year she makes her mark.

A few strokes of good luck and one high-status boyfriend later and she's sitting on top of the world. But all good things must come to and end and when Bella finds herself in rough situation, she enlists the help of dork-with-potential, Edward to help get her out.

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**A little note from the bumbling fool who's writing this:**

This is my first fanfic ever, so my expectations aren't high, but if by chance there are readers out there that do enjoy it, that would easily be one of the biggest compliments ever paid to me.

Please feel free to offer constructive criticism where ever you feel its appropriate. Any support is wildly appreciated. :)


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. They are property of a wildly talented lady by the name of Stephanie Meyer..

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Forks high school really isn't so different from most other American high schools. Despite the fact that the weather sucks and the entire town's population is considerably smaller than the enrollment list at most metropolitan-area high schools, there really aren't many other differences. Oh, right. Its green. The whole town is really, really green. Not to mention, its small and lacks anonymity. Or, at least, this is the way Ms. Bella Swan felt about the town the moment she arrived in it.

Its Bella's first day at Forks High School.

Initially, the feeling of impending doom was overwhelming. This whole new school thing was bound to go badly, so she had been hoping against hope that there would be some way of getting out of this. Maybe she could call in a bomb threat or engage in some other illicit/illegal activity. She'd only be postponing the inevitable, wouldn't she? And surely her dad, who happens to be Fork's esteemed police chief, wouldn't take too kindly to his daughter becoming a convicted felon before she's even old enough to buy cigarettes. But he _is _her father, he's bound to show her leniency, right? Unable to fully convince herself of that, she decided against doing anything that might land her in an orange jumpsuit. She was pretty much out of options.

As she parked her big noisy truck in the student parking lot, she suspected that the buzz of whispers and stares had something to do with her arrival. She shrugged in spite of herself.

As it turns out, the entire town _had_ been abuzz with the news of her impending arrival. And now, here she was, actually appearing in the flesh. Granted, in a town this small, a new arrival is bound to be big news, but this was a little ridiculous. Townsfolk and students alike were acting as if they were beholding the mythical unicorn for the first time with their very own eyes. Mouths agape & shamelessly staring, they were starting to make Bella feel a little like a walking side show. Reacting almost instinctively to the stares, Bella patted her hair down and tried to scrape her nail inconspicuously between each crevice of her teeth. She smoothed her hand around her cheeks, searching for any sign of offensive acne. Totally clear. A tad bit worse for the wear, the newly-self conscious Bella took a deep breath to compose herself. See, once her initial first-day panic passed, she'd resolved to herself that this year was going to be different from the last. This year, she was going to be somebody; this year, she was going to be popular.

That may seem like a silly thing to many, but it was one silly thing Bella had never had the opportunity to experience. As long as she's in a new town with new kids, she may as well give it an earnest try. Of course, it works heavily in her favor that, by all accounts, Bella Swan is actually quite pretty in a striking sort of way. She's slender but not shapeless, with a softness that implies femininity and not athleticism. She has long, thick chestnut-colored hair which cascades down her back in voluminous waves and reflects subtle hints of auburn when the light hits it. Most impressive still are her large, caramel-hued doe eyes which make it rather hard to concentrate on the rest of her face. Combine all of these features into a big heaping pot of milk-white skin (occasionally decorated with band-aids & bruises), and Voilà! You've got Bella Swan. This may have very well been the cause for all the staring. Just a thought.

Speaking of thoughts, Bella was lost in her very own as she wandered down the hall-way looking for her first class. Her mind had been preoccupied all morning – What's the best way to meet new people? How should I approach them? Do I just... -POW %^$%&-. Ouch.

Landing squarely on her butt, she watched in horror as her bag flew 3 feet into the air and landed with an unimpressive thud on the ground, scattering its contents everywhere. These contents would of course include everything from her lunch money to her feminine hygiene products. Great, this is exactly what she needed on her first day...wait, no, her first HOUR of school. Cursing herself under her breath for not securing the zippers on her bag, she buried her head in her hands, hoping that by the time she removed them from their place on her face, the entire student body would have vanished into thin air. Again, luck was not with her today. All she saw when she split her fingers to the sides to peak, was a tall figure crouched over her, waving his open palm in front of her face.

"Earth to, er...girl who's name I don't know. Are you breathing?" Did he sound irritated?

She blinked once and finally mustered the nerve to look into the face that was perched on the torso which housed the arm that was attached to the hand. It quickly dawned on her that what she had collided with was a human. A _boy _human. A rather tall boy with unruly hair and thick glasses, actually. His face showed nothing but concern.

She sat there stupefied for another quick second and then managed to stammer out "Uh, yeah. Breathing. Did I run into you?"

He looked at her as if she had 6 heads. "Yeah, you kinda did. Are you okay?"

She blinked again but it didn't seem to be doing anything for her articulation. She finally responded with a weak "Yeah, thanks."

To Bella's relief, a third person was now approaching the scene and had extended her arm to offer Bella the rogue bag. The stranger was kind enough to collect all of Bella's belongings, and re-place them into the pockets. But no sooner had the bag been traded when, much to Bella's shock and disapproval, the once-helpful stranger turned and glared at the boy. Bella couldn't imagine what this boy had done to merrit such a glare, and she was about to say so, when she stopped & examined the girl a little more closely. Bella quickly decided that she, herself, didn't want to be on the receiving end of this girl's glare. Standing before Bella was a tall, statuesque blonde with legs that, from Bella's vantage point on the floor, seemed to go on for miles. As if her natural beauty wasn't intimidating enough, the girl was dressed in head-to-toe designer clothes and if looks could kill, this girl's face held an arsenal. The look of total contempt painted on the girl's face was nearly painful to watch. She clearly had no intention of hiding her distaste for this boy.

Strangely though, when she finally turned to Bella, her expression had become suddenly cheerful.

"Are you okay? This..." her lip curled in a show of revulsion, "_thing_ didn't hurt you, did he?"

Bella was still mildly taken aback by the girl's sudden mood swing. It was right about this point in the conversation that Bella realized she was still flat on her butt on the ground. She stood up and patted the dust off of her pants sheepishly. Deciding that she was composed enough to speak, she replied "Oh, I'm fine. No harm no foul." She tried to look over at the boy, who, inexplicably was still subjecting himself this girl's abuse, but she couldn't seem to find his face.

He abruptly turned to address the blonde and said, "You know, sometimes its more than a little difficult to believe we came from the same womb." And just like that, he turned on his heel and left.

Right, well, if Bella had thought she'd been dumbfounded before, she was now completely befuddled. Brother & sister? She didn't have much time to mull that idea over as she now found herself standing alone with this intimidating specimen of a female and suddenly wondering if this wasn't worse that having stuck out the post-collision awkwardness on her own.

"Hi, I'm Bella." Okay, clearly not her most brilliant introduction, but its effective.

"Oh, I know who you are," replied that ethereal beauty queen. "Bella Swan, new girl. New to town, new to school. You've been generating quite a buzz around here. I'm Rosalie, but you can call me Rose."

"Well, Rose, thanks for grabbing my bag back there. I was fairly certain I'd die from embarrassment before I could collect all 3 of my maxi pads." Bella's confession spilled out before she could stop it, and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

Rose chortled at the comment. "Its no problem. A little word of advice, though: steer clear of people like that freak you ran into. In this school, there's the right crowd and the wrong crowd. And he, he's the wrong crowd, in a social- suicide type of way."

Bella doesn't have any siblings, but if she did, she didn't think she'd refer to them the way Rose was referring to her brother. Bella decided to prod, "So, being seen with boys with thick glasses is probably not the best idea for a new girl in school?"

"Yeah, basically. This school is all about the cliques. You'll learn about them soon enough. If you so much as look in the direction of one of those nerdy types, that opens its own can of worms." Rose's face scrunched up as if she were reliving an unpleasant memory, "Trust me, you don't want to learn that the hard way. Once you're seen, the rest of the school assumes you're part of the geek squad and that is the kind of damage you can't undo so easily."

Thoughtfully, Bella mused, "I guess there's a lot to learn about this place, eh?"

Rose nodded as they walked on.

As she reached her classroom door, Bella couldn't help but think that this was a rather strange introductory conversation to be having with a perfect stranger. She stopped and turned to Rose. "Its not that I don't appreciate the advice, but just out of curiosity, why did you decide to help me? No offense, but you don't seem like the typical high school 'good Samaritan'."

Rose raised an eyebrow at Bella's comment. "Like I said, you've been generating a lot of buzz around here. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure you're a really nice girl and all, and you were _clearly_ in need back there, but I'd be lying if I said my interest isn't at all piqued by the hype."

Not knowing how to respond to that, Bella just nodded. Hey, she'll take what she can get.

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A/N: This is my very first fic. Ever. I hope to be able to improve over time, but in the mean time, I hope you'll be patient with me.

First snafu? I posted this chapter, noticed some typos and started chipping away at the paragraphs. It started out totally innocently, I promise. Buttttt, what I ended up with was something quite different than what I started with yesterday..

In short, this chapter's had a face-lift. I'm sorry for any confusion this might have caused anyone who's read the story so far, but I just can't leave something up unless I'm 100% happy with it. Won't happen again, though. Pinky swear.


	3. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own few things in life, and these characters are not among them.**

**A/N: **I do my best with the proof reading, but I frequently miss little errors.

I hope you guys enjoy chapter 2.

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Bella's first, second & third period were all exceptionally uneventful. She did, however, manage to introduce herself to a short and surprisingly chatty girl she'd met in her 4th period Spanish class. Well, she didn't introduce herself, per say. Come to think of it, all Bella had done was look in girl's direction, & instantaneously, words had started to pour out of the girl's mouth at an almost alarming rate.

"Hi, ohmygosh, I've heard so much about you from people around school and its actually really awesome to finally meet you because, to be quite honest, I get the feeling that you and I are totally going to be friends in no time at all! Has that ever happened to you? You see someone's face and you just KNOW that you're going to like them? It happens to me every now & then and it's totally hilarious because that person always ends up being really close to me. Actually, most recently, it happened to me with my brother's best friend's girlfriend. Isn't that wild? Bytheway, I'm Jessica Stanley…" said the enthusiastic girl with an accompanying giggle.

Bella stared at the girl blankly as her brain tried to catch up with the speed of the words with only one thought in mind: _Holy crow! I didn't know people could push out so many words without drawing air. How did she not faint from the lack of oxygen? _

Bella shook herself out of her thoughts & smiled at the girl. "Hi, it's nice to meet you too?"

Was she asking? She wasn't really sure of that herself.

But that open ended question was all Jessica Stanley needed to continue on with her blabber. She spoke to Bella quite animatedly until the bell rang, signaling the start of class.

As the teacher droned on about the uses of _el, ella, nosotros, usted_, etc., Bella let her mind wander back to her earlier encounter with Rosalie. Okay, so Rose had admitted that her curiosity was piqued by all the hype. But wait, what hype? Why would there be any hype? There's no way anyone in town could know much about Bella. After all, her father wasn't one to go around talking about his personal business, and that would have been their only source of information. So the hype must just be because she's new, then. Regardless, at least people were actually talking to her here. That's a step up...

She was snapped out of her reverie by the bell again. To her dismay, Jessica Stanley seemed intent on picking up the conversation right where she had left off. Not that Bella didn't like Jessica, she just had a lot on her mind today. Unwittingly, she zoned out the minute she saw Jessica's mouth opening. Still, as Bella quickly caught on, all Jessica needed was a little nod of encouragement periodically and she was otherwise content with making it a one-sided conversation.

As the two of them walked into the cafeteria, Bella decided to survey the already sizable crowd that had filtered into the room from 4th period. To the right of her was a table crowded with what she assumed were the school jocks. The majority seemed to be in the bad habit of chewing with their mouths open. Charming. To her left sat a table full of artsy kids donning fashion scarves. One look at the uniform waif-look & Bella got the impression that they'd rather be sitting in the art room than the in a cafeteria. Behind the artsy types sat the socially-challenged, playing with their action figures and trading cards. Bella couldn't help but giggle at the one wearing a tin-foil head contraption who was apparently trying to make contact with Zion. On the other side of the jocks were the much abused musician types and off at the end of the cafeteria were two more tables: one crowded with a sizable group of Goth kids and the other, a table of nondescript bookworms; the future valedictorians and honors society kids.

It suddenly dawned on Bella that she had absolutely no idea where to sit. Her panic started to rise as she considered her options. Is she supposed to just assume that she can walk up to the table of her choice and just slide on in? Oh God, no. That would be mortifying. No, she'd have to figure out another way to work this out. Maybe she could just make a bee-line for the bathroom and eat in the stall today. Ugh, no Bella. Bad Bella. You promised yourself you wouldn't be doing those things this year.

Jessica must have noticed the pained look on her face, because not a moment later, she turned to Bella & asked "hey, do you want to sit with me today? I normally sit at the table in the middle there and you're welcome to join us." As Bella craned her neck to get a look at the table, she was pleased to see that Rosalie was seated right in the center of the group. While she wasn't yet sure how she felt about Rose, at least she'd be a familiar face, right?

Bella was suddenly grateful that she had stuck with Jessica when they'd left Spanish class, even if sticking with her had thus far been an ear-full. She nodded her response at Jessica, and quickly made her way through the lunch line.

Lunch in hand, Bella followed Jessica off to table in the center of the room. They were only 6 minutes into the lunch period and the table was nearly already overflowing. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that this was the _popular table_. Bella couldn't believe how her luck had turned! First day in, and she's already in the center of the cafeteria, sitting with the coolest kids in her class. Not a bad start considering that a mere 48 hours ago, she'd been contemplating the use of physical violence to get out of having to attend school.

Not really knowing where to place herself, Bella walked toward Rose's spot at the table. She hadn't taken more than 4 steps before a hand reached out and lightly brushed her forearm. She stopped abruptly & looked down.

"Hey," said a boy with big blue eyes, spiky blonde hair a cute face, "you're Isabella, right?"

"Bella," she corrected. "I always feel kind of like I'm in trouble when people use my full name," she chuckled nervously at her own joke. The boy's answering grin made her feel tingly in a weird way.

"Well, Bella, I'm Mike. Did you need a spot at the table? You're more than welcome to sit here next to me."

Bella couldn't even help the automatic flush that filled her cheeks. Wrapped up in the Mike-moment, she'd failed to give an audible response, and, more importantly, to notice Jessica standing beside her with an almost manic look in her eyes. Jessica saved Bella the trouble, and answered on her behalf. "We'd love to!"

Glancing over at Jessica in disbelief, Bella started to slide into the seat next to Mike. But, with her extreme lack of grace, her _slide _turned more into a _plop_ and her _plop_ didn't seem to want to _stop_. A split second later, Bella realized that she wasn't so much as plopping into the chair as she was plopping onto the ground. Her dumbfounded expression was quickly replaced with one of red-faced embarrassment as she realized that she'd just fallen on her butt for the second time today right in front of a boy. Somehow, though, falling in front of this boy was far worse than the first, even in the absence of the flying maxi pads. Looking around frantically for the whereabouts of her chair, she saw Jessica standing there, holding the chair, with the faintest hint of a smirk on her face.

"Ooooooooops, ohmygosh Bella, I'm so sorry. I thought this was my chair." Jessica made quick work of masking that smirk with a look of regret. She extended her hand out for Bella to take, but Mike had beat her to it. He was already on his feet and was lifting Bella up by the hands. This time, Bella missed the scowl that broke through Jessica's regretful demeanor.

Bella was back on her feet, but Mike looked more than a little unwilling to let go of her hands.

"Are you okay?" he asked, glancing over at Jessica who was wearing her best innocent look.

Trying to act casual, Bella waved a hand in the air, "I'm fine. My butt gets more action than I care to admit." It wasn't until Mike did a little blushing of his own that Bella realized what she had just said. Mortified, her palm instinctively flew to her forehead, where she let it sit for a few seconds while she choked out "what I mean is, I fall. A lot."

When her eyes rose to meet Mike's gaze, she was surprised to see his face didn't reflect the "second-hand-embarrassment" reaction that she'd grown so accustomed to from people. Instead, he seemed to be taking Bella in rather appreciatively. There go the tingles again.

Shaking off his own daze, Mike grabbed the chair that Jessica had pulled out from under Bella and slid it over to his side. He waited for Bella to actually sit in the chair, before taking a seat next to her. Outside of their little bubble, Mike and Bella were vaguely aware that Jessica had pulled up a seat to Mike's other side and was starting on her lunch.

Mike unwrapped his sandwich and peered sidelong at Bella as he asked "so, how's your first day at Forks High?"

Bella tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she struggled to open her can of soda. She meant to kind of nod her head, but her entire body seemed to rock instead. "So far, so good. I've met some interesting people so far." She looked past Mike and smiled warmly at Jessica, but Jessica looked preoccupied with the lid of her fruit cup. Acting as if she hadn't heard Bella at all, Jessica leaned over and tapped Mike on the shoulder. Out poured her verbal rapid-fire.

"So, Mike, how was your summer? Did you spend it working at your parent's store again? Man, that place is so awesome. I wish I could work there. I mean, working with sporting goods all the time must be really neat! Especially for a guy like you who's absolutely amazing at every. Single. Sport." Jessica brushed her hand over his arm in an overly friendly gesture.

Seemingly unimpressed by her flirtations, Mike looked down at the arm she touched and back up at her face. Wordlessly, he turned his attention back to Bella and resumed his conversation. "Interesting people, huh? There are plenty of those around here," he said, gesturing at the surrounding cafeteria.

Bella smiled and looked back down at the soda can she was still struggling with. She tried again, unsuccessfully, to pop the lid open. Mike, not missing a beat, grabbed the can and popped it open in one smooth motion. Bella ran her hands through her hair and looked up at him. "Thanks," she said,"I can't seem to do anything for myself today."

"It's no problem," said Mike. "I like the whole damsel in distress deal. Its cute."

Bella was both embarrassed and flattered, but couldn't discern which was the prevailing emotion. Without thinking, she dragged her lower lip between her teeth and started to chew lightly. When she looked up at Mike, his gazed was transfixed on her mouth. Thoroughly embarrassed now, she averted her gaze as a deep red blush spread across her face and neck. But her face wasn't the only red one. Jessica Stanley was still fuming from Mike's less-than-subtle blow off and if you looked closely enough, you might actually see a bit of steam rising from her scalp.

As the lunch period drew to a close, Bella started to gather her belongings. Considering she had been preoccupied with her thoughts to the point of distraction earlier, she thought it odd that all conscious thought had left her brain for the entire duration of the lunch period. Is that what happens when you sit next to a cute and popular boy? She wasn't sure. It had never happened to her before.

The bell rang and she stood from the table. Before she could even reach her bag to sling it onto her shoulder, Mike had grabbed it and hoisted it on his own. Puzzled, she looked up at him. He was grinning sheepishly, "can I walk you to class, Bella?"

Wordlessly, a, perhaps, overly enthusiastic Bella nodded so hard that she thought her head was going to break off at the neck and roll across the floor. Mike stepped to the side and extended his arm, indicating that Bella should lead the way. Mike and Bella made their way their 6th period. Biology class.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I am fully aware of the fact that Bella's first day has now turned into like a 2 month ordeal in real time and, for this, I am sorry. I'm already working on Chapter 4. Its a lame excuse, but I'm doing a self-paced professional studies class, which I waited far too long to start on and the last 2 months have been a scramble to catch up on 6 months worth of procrastination. Sorry :(

Here's chapter 3. Hope its okay.

**Disclaimer:** Blah blah blah...don't work characters..blah blah blah...all Stephanie Meyer. You know the drill.

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Bella and Mike had just barely managed to shuffle their way out of the cafeteria when Bella heard a voice behind her. "Wait! Bella!" rang the voice. Bella turned to see Jessica, who was walking briskly to catch up with her and Mike, "did you want to walk with me to class?" continued Jessica, "I was thinking about this a little earlier: since you're new to town and all, I thought maybe we could put together a _welcome to Forks _bash. You know, it would be a great way to meet people and, who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and pick up a cute guy!"

Bella may be sweet, but she's no fool. She was beginning to suspect that there was a lot more to Jessica's comments and convenient timing than she had originally assessed. Bella started blankly at Jessica's face, wondering what the nicest way would be to break it to Jessica that she really had no interest in discussing anything at the moment. As far as she was concerned, all of her attention needed to be focused on staying on her own two feet in front of this male specimen who seemed to actually be interested in her, a fact that she wasn't yet sure had sunk in. To say that this was a new kind of experience, would be the understatement of her lifetime. In all of her 17 years, as far as she could tell, no boy had ever even looked twice at her. She knew she was way out of her league, here, but she didn't want to pass up the opportunity to actually be seen next to a boy. .

After a few long moments, something occurred to Bella that hadn't occurred to her before. She blinked. "Where are you heading to, Jessica?" A slow grin threatened to creep onto her face. She distinctly remembered an earlier conversation where Jessica had mentioned her 6th period – English.

"Oh, um," Jessica paused to peek at her schedule and frowned "I guess I have English this period." She glanced down the end of the hallway toward her next class and then turned back to look at Mike one more time. Bella may have overacted a smidgen when expressing her feigned disappointment. "Oh, no! That's too bad, I'm in Biology this period and, according to my map, that's on the opposite end of the campus. Sorry Jess!"

Yep, just a smidgeon.

And then Bella heard the words that caused her stomach to flutter with nerves: "I have Biology this period, but I'll walk you anywhere you're heading, Bella," offered in Mike. With a ridiculously obvious smile plastered onto her face, all Bella could offer was a nod of her head. This was quickly becoming her standard response to things pertaining to Mike.

Mike's comment seemed to have wounded Jessica. The disappointment set into her face almost immediately. "No problem then, I'll just catch you at the gym last period." Slowly, Jessica turned to make her way down the hallway. Bella felt a pang of pity for the girl, but it was quickly forgotten when Mike gently grabbed her arm and began to lead her toward their class.

Mike's grin was, in Bella's opinion, incredibly nice to look at and his dimpled cheek succeeded in wiping her of most of her coherent thoughts. She searched around her now-empty head for something clever to say, but seemed to be coming up short on the _clever_ today. "I'll be glad when this day is over."

Mike looked surprised by her admission. "Why's that?"

Bella shrugged, "its been an...eventful day, to say the least. Earlier, I ran face first into this guy, pretty hard, too. He seem less than thrilled about the whole thing, of course, and I've just been having those kinds of run-ins all day. I'm beginning to wish there was a do-over button."

Mike humored Bella with a smile. "I wouldn't worry about it. Something tells me anybody around here would forgive you for running face first into them."

Bella blushed, but had no idea why. Was that even a compliment? Oh, who cares. The way he was looking at her was making her knees wobbly. She pouted a little when they reached the door to their Biology class. Mike handed her her bag and gazed into her face with his smooth confidence. "I'll meet you at the door to walk you to your 7th period, okay?" Bella chewed on her lip and smiled before nodding her head. Again.

By the time she'd regained her senses, she realized that she needed to hand her slip to her teacher, and find a seat. Once Mr. Banner had signed off on her slip, he pointed her toward the only available lab seat, which happened to be next to the boy she'd smashed into earlier: Rosalie's brother. She cringed a little at the thought of having to face the human wall she'd humiliated herself in front of earlier.

She quickly made her way over to the lab table and pulled out her book. The boy made no attempt at eye contact with Bella but Bella wasn't sure if it was because he was feeling as awkward as she was, or if he was just being plain rude. As of right now, she was leaning toward the rude option. He looked as though he was purposely ignoring her. She did her best to avert her eyes, but kept finding that her curiosity was getting the better of her. There was something about this boy that she found intriguing. From where she sat, he wasn't much to look at, per say. He wasn't awful, but she certainly wouldn't have given him a second thought if she hadn't recognized him as the person she'd bumped into earlier. And, if she was being honest with herself, she was morbidly fascinated with the strange dynamic between him and his sister . It could have also had something to do with the fact that he was the first person she'd encountered today that had been totally apathetic to her, which was making her more determined to get some acknowledgment. All she knew for sure was that she couldn't stop herself from sneaking side-long peaks at him to study him.

The more she observed him, the more she was registering all of the details that were unique to him. She hadn't been able to meet his eyes when she bumped into him earlier, mainly out of sheer embarrassment and now she was finally looking at him for the first time. His look was unique and he sat at about 6'2 with a lanky frame. His most unusual feature was easily his full head of unruly bronze hair, which appeared to have a very independent mind of its own. She wondered if this was a typical hair-day for him, or if she had caught him on a wild day. His facial features were sharp and defined, but when she looked at him, all she registered were his big, black thick-framed glasses which seemed to occupy at least 78% of his face. If today's outfit was any indication, this boy had a penchant for fitted plaid button-down shirts and slacks worn just a tad too high on his waist.

Without permission, her mind soon started wandering into ridiculousness. She wondered whether he could touch the door frame without having to use his tippy-toes and once she'd convinced herself that he more than likely could, she started to picture what all of his hair would look like if it were braided. Add a bow? She giggled at the thought and then caught herself, straightening her expression. Meanwhile, her eyes were occupying themselves, focusing on a particularly interesting patch of plaid she'd found on the boy's shoulder.

She was too deep in her thoughts and her stares to notice that the boy had caught her stare and was looking right back at her with a questioning look on his face. As she studied the details of his shoulder-plaid, (her thoughts reverting back to how high he could reach when on his toes) his expression eased into an almost amused grin. It wasn't until he dipped his head to catch her eyes that she realized that she'd been caught staring shamelessly. Her initial reaction was to blush a furious red. Trying to divert attention from the heat and color which were taking over her cheeks (in a less-than-subtle manner), she cleared her throat softly and dropped her eyes to the lab table. "Oh..", she said softly, searching for some sort of explanation for her rude behavior, "sorry, I was, uh, kind of engrossed in the plaid pattern on your shirt."

His amused smile hadn't diminished one bit. "Were you?" he replied, the grin playing on his lips, "do you normally find plaid to be so thought-provoking?"

She gave a small smile, half embarrassed, half amused, herself. "Apparently, only when its on your shoulder," she replied, shifting her body back toward the front of the class.

His amused expression eased into one of friendly neutrality. "I'm Edward."

Bella, turned back to look at his face. "I'm Bella Swan, its nice to meet you, Edward."

"Pleasure's mine," he replied, "and I'm pleasantly surprised to see that we can actually exchange words without causing physical damage to each other." The amused expression had transferred into a mischievous glint in his eye.

Bella cringed slightly at the mention of their first meeting. He was talking to her with such ease that it was easy to forget that she had nearly killed him. "Riiight. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I'm reallyyyyy sorry about that."

The ends of Edward's mouth tugged upward into some semblance of a smile, except it was crooked and totally unfamiliar to Bella. "No worries," he said, "my glasses are still in one piece and that's really more than I can ask for."

Bella was beyond surprised by the lightheartedness of their conversation. Based on his reaction to his sister earlier, she certainly wasn't expecting to see this side of Edward. She couldn't have even guessed that it existed. Before she could even think about it, a giggle escaped her mouth. She looked up into his face and in between giggles and said "So basically, what you're saying is, I can maim you or break every bone in your body, as long as I keep away from the glasses? Is that like a Clark Kent thing? If the glasses break, everyone will discover your real identity?

Edward didn't bother to hide the surprised expression on his face, nor had his grin faded since the beginning of their conversation. "I didn't take you for a Superman fan, ya know."

Bella looked at him with a sly expression. "Really? What did you take me for then?"

Edward thought it over for a second. "Oh, I don't know. A _Gossip Girl_ fan?"

Bella might have been insulted, if she hadn't have found that to be so incredibly amusing. She didn't bother to contain her laughter, either. "Do I really have to refer to the book and cover expression? Really, now?"

Edward grinned. "No, I don't think that'll be necessary. I'm learn my lessons quickly."

Bella flashed him a brilliant grin which showcased all of her teeth and their eyes locked. It only took a split second for Bella to realize that Edward had absolutely stunning hazel/green eyes. For some reason, this caught her completely off guard, sending her into a momentary daze. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again and then reopened it to let out her next words, but nothing ever came. The awkward moment was mercifully short-lived, because Mr. Banner started the lesson a few moments later.

Bella dared one more peek at Edward after Mr. Banner started his lecture, and she could have sworn she could see the remains of the impish grin on his face.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mr. Banner was about 13 minutes into his lecture, and Bella was already painfully bored. She had been through this entire lesson at her old school. She didn't like it then, and she certainly didn't like it any more now. She pulled over her spiral bound notebook and began to doodle nonsense on the first page of it. She could probably teach this lesson if she really wanted to, so she didn't feel as though taking notes were a top priority.

She was just adding in the shading to her ankh sketch when she felt someone or something tapping her elbow from behind her. She turned her head slightly to see the girl in the lab desk behind her passing her a folded sheet of paper as inconspicuously as possible. Confused, Bella took the folded cube of paper and slid it under her notebook, careful not to call any unnecessary attention to herself. She unfolded it quietly and her eyes grew ever so slightly when she read it.

_Bella – _

_Sucks that you're sitting so far away. It makes my plot to try and charm you a lot harder than it should be. That's a joke. Unless, of course, you don't want it to be. _

_Listen, since I didn't get a lot of time to talk to you earlier, come out with me after school. Lets go grab some ice cream or something. I'll meet you by your truck after last period. _

_-Mike. _

Bella very nearly choked on nothing. Her entire face burned with heat and she started to fan it with her hand. She barely registered Edward's quizzical glance as she refolded the note to tuck it away.

_Did Mike Newton just asked me out? Wait, yeah, that sounded like a "date", right? Well, technically, he didn't really ask me anything, he just kind of told me that he'd meet me by my truck. Oh my GOD, I have gym last period, so I'll probably look awful by the end of the day. And smelly. _She groaned inwardly, but stopped short as another wave of panic hit her. _Do I have any gum? I don't think I do. _Forgetting to be inconspicuous, she riffled through her bag, looking for some gum._ I wonder how my breath is... _She cupped her hand, blew a breath out and sniffed._ Ugh, I can't tell..._

The bell rang, but Bella was so lost in her own personal drama, that she hadn't even noticed. The sound of Edward's voice gave her quite a start.

"Where are you headed?" he asked, almost hopefully, it seemed.

"Huh?" she looked up at him, bewildered. "Oh, uh," she looked down at her schedule, which was neatly situated in that spot between the cover of her binder and the clear plastic slip. "I have gym this period."

Edward smiled politely. "Oh, well then I'll be sure to leave a wide berth in the hall when I see you coming through then."

Bella gave him a mock-glare, but couldn't hide her amusement very effectively. "Bye Edward," she added curtly, as if trying to keep up her feigned annoyance.

Edward snickered as he collected the rest of his books and turned to walk out of the Biology classroom. "Byeee Bella" he called back over his shoulder, in a sugary-sweet way.

Once Edward had vacated the classroom, Bella returned to her full blown-panic mode.

This ice cream outing with Mike, _is_ it a date? _How would I know?_ _And what does he expect from me? _Obviously, going out with him would be fantastic for her budding reputation at this school. _ I already have so many natural disadvantages, like my clumsiness and my non-Rosaliesque looks, neither of which are going to help my popularity. Being seen with Mike is like insta-cool points. I mean, Jessica fawns around him, and it must be because he's Mr. Cool-guy, right? Plus, he's cute. I could definitely make this work._

Now, a little more encouraged by her half-assed pep talk, she gathered her books and headed straight to her doom.

Er...Gym.


	5. Chapter 4

A/N:

Alas, another chapter for anyone with enough patience to actually read this fic.

**Disclaimer:**

**At this stage in the game, everyone knows the drill. I don't own much, & these characters certainly aren't a part of that. **

* * *

Bella absent-mindedly gathered up her belongings to make her way to her last period of the day. She was lagging behind the rest of the class, mulling over whatever it was that had happened in Biology class. The only two words on repeat in her mind were "Mike" and "date". She was absolutely dumbfounded. She decided that she would concentrate on getting through what was bound to be a disastrous 7th period class and save her major freak-out for later. She wondered where Mike had gone & if he would be walking her to class or not, but, not willing to risk being late to class, she decided to let it go. After all, she didn't see him anywhere around.

As she hit the hallway, she was blindsided by none other than Jessica Stanley. Without a moments hesitation, Jessica picked right back up on their earlier conversation. "Soooo, how's your day going so far?"

Bella shrugged. "Its been alright, I guess." It had actually been way better than alright, but Bella decided against giving away too much.

Jessica got straight to the point. "So, about that party I mentioned earlier, I was thinking that maybe we could do it 2 weeks from now? My parents will be out of town so we could use my place and invite pretty much the entire junior class. I heard through the grapevine that Tyler was checking you out during lunch today and that Eric had his eye on you during English. That's not a bad start to the school year, in my opinion. Tyler's actually kind of a hottie. Anyway, my best friend Lauren has the hook up on some kegs and we can just buy like cheese puffs or something to feed people. We can hook my ipod up to my home entertainment system and just let the music loop and that I think we'd be all set. Soooo, meet me at my house this afternoon to discuss details?"

Hadn't they basically just gone over the details a moment ago? Bella couldn't imagine why she would need to meet up with Jessica to discuss anything further. Still, this party thing might not be such a bad idea after all, considering that having the entire junior class under one roof in a social setting while she hung out with her new popular friends probably wouldn't hurt her reputation in the least. "Um, sure, Jess, sounds good."

Oops. "Wait, actually, I have something to do after school today, do you mind if we meet tomorrow?" She wasn't sure how she could have possibly forgotten the one thing that had been consuming her every thought since Biology.

"Really? What are you doing today?" asked Jessica, casually.

Bella wasn't actually expecting her to ask that. "I…well….I guess…I kind of…um….I have an appointment?"

Jessica nodded slowly, "Well, okay then, we'll meet tomorrow after school. Here's my address, just come straight to my house." Jessica tore a small sheet of paper out of her notebook, scribbled her address on it and handed it to Bella.

Bella smiled at Jessica. "Sounds good, I'll be there around 3:15 tomorrow then, assuming that I actually survive gym with all of my limbs in tact. At the very least, it'll solidify my status as a physical liability today."

Jessica chuckled, "You honestly can't be that bad."

Bella looked at Jessica in disbelief, "Its a phenomena you really have to witness for yourself to believe. The school will probably have to update their liability insurance now that I'm here."

Jessica shook her head, giggling and looked as though she was about to say something when a rather unremarkable girl came tearing through the hallway, making a beeline for them both. She made a dead stop right in front of Jessica and Bella and and quickly grabbed Jessica's arm to pull her away into what was apparently a private conversation. Suddenly remembering her manners, she released Jessica's arm and looked at Bella with an overly friendly expression similar to the one Jessica usually had on her face. "Hi, you must be Bella Swan."

Bella smiled nervously. "That's me. And you are?"

The girl's responding smirk was….haughty? Bella could't quite decide. "I'm Lauren, Jessica's best friend. Speaking of, would you mind if I stole Jess a sec to share some news I just heard? You can spare her for a minute, can't you?"

Bella was not at all opposed to this as long as it meant putting some distance between herself these girls. There was something very 'Stepfordy' about the girls in this school. More importantly, she wasn't at all accustomed to the politics of having these kind of friends and it was starting to rattle her nerves a little. "Yeah, no, of course I don't mind." She sent Jessica a timid wave and, with that, the two girls wandered down the hall arm in arm.

Bella was thankful for the ensuing silence. She was starting to feel the serious lack of quiet time.

As she walked into the locker room, and began to examine her new locker, Bella noticed Rosalie standing 3 benches over. Rose looked over in Bella's direction and, when she registered her presence, she wandering slowly over in her direction. Rosalie typically made Bella incredibly nervous and Bella, not really knowing how to react, stared straight down at the ground as nonchalantly as was possible and pretended not to notice Rosalie.

"I see Jessica Stanley has decided to glue herself to your left butt cheek already, eh?"

Bella looked up at Rose confused, all attempts at nonchalance gone now. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing, really." Rose sighed and it looked as though she was carefully choosing her words. She lowered her voice a little and leaned into Bella. "I just thought I'd give you a heads up. Some things around here are as predictable as the weather & Jessica's behavior is usually one of those things. Sunny days quickly turn into stormy afternoons with that girl."

Bella, once again bewildered by Rosalie's assistance, nodded her head in agreement. "Its only day one, but I think I was beginning to pick up on that already."

She wasn't sure why she was speaking candidly to Rose, but oddly enough, she felt a certain level of comfort in their conversations, something she hadn't experienced with anybody else at Forks. Well, anybody aside from Edward, really.

Rosalie's lip quirked. "Smart girl. With instincts like those, I think you'll be just fine around here."

Bella smiled, "Instincts and my new social-fairy-god-mother."

Rosalie smiled knowingly at Bella and turned to walk back to her locker to finish dressing for gym.

* * *

The next period went on without incident. The class was split into teams and each team was playing volleyball against an opposing team. Mercifully, Bella was able to sit today's class out since it was her first day.

Before she knew it, it was time to pack up and go. When the bell rang, Bella made a beeline for her locker to grab her bag. Once she'd collected her belongings, she shot out the door in the direction of the ladies' room to freshen up. As she rounded the corner, her ankle gave way and she quickly found herself tumbling to the ground. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the fall -- which oddly, never came.

As she opened up one eye to assess the situation, all she saw was the legs of a pair of trousers. In the next instant, she felt herself being lifted from her half-suspended position, and being righted on her feet. As she opened the other eye, she was eye-to-shoulder with none other than Edward, who was still holding her firmly by the arms.

"Wow, twice in one day. I must have misbehaved in a past life," said a grinning Edward.

Bella's face began to redden, but with a grin like his, she couldn't wallow in her embarrassment for long. "I think you just saved me, Clark Kent."

"Yeah, I did, didn't I? Shucks, I didn't have a chance to rip open my button down and switch into my hero costume."

It was then, when Edward mentioned ripped clothes, that Bella became acutely aware of the fact that Edward had not released her arms. The thought made her redden all over again.

The realization apparently hit Edward in the same instant, and his cheeks flushed pink in unison with hers. Bella suddenly understood why people would comment constantly on her ever-present blush. Seeing Edward's face change color was probably one of the most endearing things Bella had ever seen. So much so, that she couldn't help the smile that invaded her face.

Edward hesitated just a moment longer than appropriate before dropping his hands slowly from her arms.

Clearing his throat, Edward picked up the bag that he had dropped when he dove to catch Bella. He swung it over his shoulder and looked at her from over his glasses, "You know, I'm beginning to suspect that you're doing the whole falling thing on purpose," and then came the mischievous glint in his eye, "and I think you should really talk to someone about your floor fetish, Bella. Its not normal."

Bella frowned, "But its so shiny and smooth..."

"Its dirty, Bella. You have no idea how infrequently they clean this floor" he said, with an uncharacteristically straight face.

Bella grinned, "Actually, I'm just having an exceptionally clumsy day. Nerves, or something"

Edward looked down at his feet and smiled, "Fantastic use of a multi-syllable word." His head rocked up toward the ceiling, and their eyes did not meet again. "Try and stay on your feet. I won't always be able to catch you." He kicked his foot into the floor, slowly turned and walked away. As he retreated, he shot one last "Byeeee Bella" over his shoulder, in his mockingly sweet manner.

Bella sighed, and looked around the empty hallway. Her eyes settled on the hallway clock, and a sudden sense or urgency overcame her as realization set in that her encounter with Edward had set her back for a full 7 minutes. Forgetting her trip to the ladies room, she took off running toward her truck.

As she arrived in her parking lot, she slowed to a walk in an attempt not to look desperate. She looked around, but found no sign of Mike. Her heart began to sink slowly. As she approached her truck, she found another note tucked under her windshield wiper and grabbed it. She unfolded the note to find Mike's neat little handwriting. Her eyes scanned the message:

_Hey Bella,_

_Sorry, I had to jet, but meet me at the ice cream shop on Spruce drive. I'll be there at about 3:30. "_

_-Mike_

She clutched the note in her palm and pulled out her cell phone to check the time. It was 3:15. She had to get moving if she was going to make it there on time and she couldn't afford to blow this. She hopped in her truck, bumping her head on the door frame as she slid in. She drove as fast as her big old truck would take her and arrived at the ice cream shop at about 3:32. As she got down from her truck, she surveyed the crowd, looking for any sign of Mike. She felt her heart sinking all over again when she couldn't spot him in any of the small crowds hanging out outside of the shop.

Feeling rather defeated, she went up to the order window and ordered herself the biggest banana split on the menu and sat down in one of the little round tables that were set up outside. She pouted to herself while she waited for her sundae, wondering where on earth Mike was. She was desperately hoping that he was just running late and would show up at any second. _Maybe there's a completely reasonable excuse for him not showing up. A flat tire? Some sort of delay at school? A family emergency? Anything at all? _ she thought. She was rattling options x, y and z off in her own mind when her sundae was placed in front of her. "Are you following me?" The familiar voice pulled her out of her thoughts_. _

She looked up almost startled to see Edward standing there, wearing a blue apron and a cap with a giant plush ice-cream cone stuck to the front of it, his thick glasses looking more prominent with the cap on.

Bella managed a giggle in spite of her pseudo-heartbreak. "So you work here, do you?"

Edward raised his eyebrow at her, "No, I just like to dress this way outside of school."

Bella chortled. "And its a good look for you, you know."

Edward pursed his lips and quickly pulled his cap off, rubbing his bronze hair into its typical wild position. "Don't mock the cone, its a hit with the ladies."

Bella raised an eyebrow at him, "Any of those ladies under 70?"

Without missing a beat, Edward quickly replied, "Nope." And this made Bella laugh even harder.

"I'm guessing its the closest they've come to something phallic in years," replied Bella, which resulted in Edward joining in on the laughter.

As the giggling subsided, Edward sat down at Bella's table. "So, what brings you here?" he asked, looking genuinely curious.

Bella hesitated a little, considering whether she should re-tell her wild-Mike-chase story.

Edward amended his question. "You don't have to tell me if its personal…"

Bella suddenly felt silly for making it seem so top-secret. "No, no, its not that. I guess I just feel kind of ridiculous right now, that's all."

Edward looked at Bella rather incredulously. "You're telling me, the guy wearing a plush ice-cream cone on his head, that you feel kind of ridiculous?"

Bella giggled, "Well, since you put it that way…."

Edward grinned. "Yeah, I'm a pro at putting things into perspective."

Bella smiled at him, "And you're a pro at making me feel better too, apparently."

_What is it about him that makes me want to be around him all the time? He's witty and fun,_ Bella thought to herself. _I wonder if what Rosalie said about hanging out with him is true. And, if it is, would that really be such a bad stigma?_

Without an invitation, Edward had grabbed an extra spoon and started digging into Bella's sundae. "HEY! Get your own!" Bella gave him a little shove with her shoulder and giggled.

Edward playfully stole one more spoon full of her sundae before he looked up at her. As he looked past Bella's shoulder, his expression hardened and his jaw clenched. He grabbed his cap, puled it on and quickly popped up from Bella's table. With a mouth full of sundae, he gave her a tight smile. "Back to work for me, I'll catch you later." He glanced past Bella one more time, turned around and walked back inside.

Confused and a little butt-hurt by his hasty retreat, Bella sat there frowning and wondered if she'd done something to upset him.

Without warning, a strong pair of hands covered both of her eyes, and voice came close to her ear, the breath tickling her neck. "Guess who?"

Bella grabbed one of the wrists, removed the hand and turned around to see Mike Newton's be-dimpled smile looking down at her.

And, for some strange reason, she was kind of disappointed.

* * *

A/N:

As always, feedback and corrections are appreciated. Sorry for any typos. No matter how many times I proofread, they always manage to sneak in.


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Not all too thrilled with this chapter, but I'm having difficulty with pacing and development & all of that. I guess those are the hiccups that come with first time fics? Either that, or I'm just a weaksauce fic-writer. Feedback & suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Again, sorry for the tremendously long wait.

**Disclaimer:** I. do. not. own.

* * *

Apparently, the feeling of disappointment was a fleeting one. Bella smiled at Mike and gestured for him to join her at the table. Mike sat in Edward's spot, and Bella nearly asked him to move, but decided against it. Mike quickly made himself comfortable about a foot away from Bella.

"Soooo, did you want something from here?" he asked.

"No, thanks," she replied, "I actually had, probably, the biggest sundae on the menu while I was waiting."

"Oh, right, yeah. I'm sorry about keeping you waiting. I was tied up at school." Mike looked sufficiently remorseful for having kept Bella waiting, so she decided not to lay it on any thicker.

"Its cool, its just what?" she looked down at her watch, "About 4:00 now? I actually have to be heading home soon. Lots of first-day homework and chores."

Mike looked at her, his surprise painted plainly on his face. Bella noticed that Mike was not the type of guy that girls usually walked away from.

"That's a shame, seeing as how I just got here and all," replied Mike.

Bella decided to play it cool. After all, wasn't everyone always saying that hard-to-get was the way to go? "Oh that is a shame. I guess we'll just have to raincheck your… 'plot to charm me', was it?" Mike smiled sheepishly at Bella's bold little comment. He hadn't yet met spunky Bella. Apparently, Bella hadn't yet met spunky Bella either and she blushed at her own boldness.

And in the midst of her blush, Mike's pants began to chime. They both looked down at his pants quizzically at the same time and Mike pulled his cell phone out of the pocket which housed it. Looking down at the screen, his expression became slightly frustrated and he excused himself from the table to address the text message.

Bella sat there deep in thought, wondering what it was about Mike that struck her odd. It was obviously working to her disadvantage that she had no prior experience with boys, even in a friendship capacity. She had no idea what one should consider the _typical behaviors of a teenage boy_. She very much doubted that television shows would make good reference material. It would help a lot if she had a girl friend to talk these things out with. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mike approaching and dismissed her thoughts and speculations.

Mike's butt hadn't even hit the bench before he got right to business. "So Bella, I've been meaning to ask you all day - Do you have any plans for Friday night?"

"Well, no, not really," she said nervously, "I don't even know what there is to do around here on weekends yet."

"Not much," Mike snickered a little at his own response. "But there is this party on Friday night at Eric's house, just a small group of kids, no big deal. I was wondering if you wanted to go. With me. Maybe," Mike asked, sounding almost nervous.

Bella smiled wide as she wrung her hands in her lap. "Well, sure. That sounds like fun."

"Excellent," Mike smiled a broad smile and pumped his fist at his side with excitement, "I will…pick you up at 7:30 on Friday then?"

"Sure, 7:30 works." She was beaming.

"AWEsome, I'll let Eric know you'll be joining us…" he looked like he had more to say, but Bella felt this would be the appropriate time to make her exit.

"Great, I can't wait. But hey, I think I should probably get going. My dad will start to worry if I don't get home soon. I'll see you tomorrow?" and she added a sweet smile at the end that appeared to reduce Mike to a puddle of goo.

"Okay, see you tomorrow then," he said, almost-dreamily.

She picked up her bag, gave Mike a small wave and turned to head over to her truck. The only time she turned back was to look toward the shop to see if she could get one last glimpse of Edward.

She pulled up to the house, and it was quiet and empty, as usual. Her dad, Charlie, was hardly ever there outside of meal time. Most of the time, she felt as though she lived alone. She practically did. Still, her father had done his best to turn his house into welcoming home for Bella.

A modest two-story home, there were only two rooms and one bathroom. Charlie, required very little space so he basically relinquished control of the bathroom to Bella and allowed her to decorate her room as she saw fit on his bill. She took full advantage of the freedom and created her own private little oasis in her bedroom. She painted the walls, picked out her furniture and set up a nice desk for her laptop. She had a little window nook for reading and her own TV with cable. And there, up on her wall, next to her laptop desk, were cork boards just waiting to be filled with notes, pictures and memories. As she entered her room, she caught sight of her empty boards. She removed Mike's first note from her pocket and tacked it up on her cork board.

She dropped her bag on her bed and grabbed her robe and shower cap to hop in the shower. She picked up her bag to move it to her desk and it suddenly dawned on her that her bag had felt lighter than usual. When she opened it up to riffled through her belongings, she noticed right away that her wallet was gone. Not that there was much inside of it, but it at least had her lunch money for the week and her I.D.

Bella was 5-digits in to dialing the number for the ice-cream shop when there came a knock at the front door. She closed her phone and bounded down the stairs to see who it was. She opened her door and was surprised to see Edward's tall and lanky frame leaning against her door frame.

She couldn't help but smile. "Now who's following who?" she asked.

Edward snickered at her comment, and held up her wallet. "Hello to you too, Bella. And you're welcome."

"Oh!", she reached out to take her wallet back, relieved that it was found. "I was just calling the shop to see if they'd found it. Thanks for bringing it by, you didn't have to go out of your way like that."

"Pshh, as if I would," he said, smirking. "Actually, coincidentally, your house is on my way home," he said sincerely, "soI figured I'd just hand deliver it."

Bella suddenly realized she was being rude. "Did you want to come in?"

Edward shrugged, looking in past the door and up around the entry way, "Sure, so long as I won't find your dad at the kitchen table cleaning a shot gun or something." Bella giggled as she stepped aside to let him enter.

As he sat at the kitchen table, Bella prepared some hot chocolate for the both of them. Edward cleared his throat, "Did you happen to hear Mr. Banner announce that huge Biology project in class today?"

Bella's head shot up at attention. "No, what project?" She briefly recalled having been exceptionally distracted at various stages of Mr. Banner's class.

"Yeah, he announced it while you were passing notes…like a delinquent," Edward's voice was thick with amusement.

"Hey now," said Bella, embarrassed, "the notes were being passed to me, thank-you-very-much."

"By Newton?" asked Edward, a little edge to his voice.

"Yeah, the note was from Mike. How did you know?" Bella turned to look at Edward, wanting to see his body language.

"He's been making goo-goo eyes at you all day. Its pretty obvious that he's interested. I've seen those looks before."

Bella brought the hot chocolate over to the table and sat across from Edward. "Those looks? Like, from Mike to other people?"

"Yeah," replied Edward. "Except that Mike hasn't had to…_pursue_… a girl since at least his freshman year. Most of the girls in our class make themselves readily available to him, if you know what I mean."

And with that comment, Bella felt a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. "Oh," she said, clearly looking disturbed by the conversation. Almost instantly, Edward reached out to put his hand on hers in a comforting gesture.

"Hey, I didn't mean it like that. Look, I've known Mike since the third grade and since the third grade, Mike has always been able to get whatever he wanted. Whether it was toys, cars, girls, or that starting spot on a team. He's a charmer and things come easily to him. It has nothing to do with you, personally."

Strangely, Bella found herself less focused on Edward's words, and more focused on the feel of Edward's hand on her own. Every time his skin made contact with hers, she could feel her nerve endings tingle and it was one of the most glorious sensations she'd ever felt. As she stared down at his hand over her own, Edward cleared his throat nervously and attempted to change the subject. "Anyway, the project, is uh, well - it'll be due in a couple of weeks and it was assigned in groups."

As soon as he removed his hand from her own, her eyes found her mug and stayed steadily focused on where her hand was fiddling with the handle of the cup. Edward pressed on, "And since you and I share a lab bench, we're going to have to work on the project. Together." He cleared his throat again, "So I was thinking maybe we could get together after school or something to get it started. But, I mean, if you have a busy after school schedule, I guess we could work independently of each other and then just get together once or twice to finalize the whole thing…"

Bella was rather amused at how nervous Edward had become in the past two minutes or so. She looked up at him and nodded, a small smile emerging on her lips. "Sure, any day after school would work. As a matter of fact, how about Thursday?"

Edward smiled back so broadly, that his glasses shifted upward on his face with the movement of his cheeks, one side a little higher than the other with his crooked smile. "Thursday works."

Bella couldn't help but smile back at his reaction. There was something she found incredibly endearing about Edward. He looked down at his hands, and then back up at Bella as he rose from the table. "Well, I think I should probably head home then and get started on some homework." Bella rose behind him and walked him to the door. Edward turned back to her before stepping past the threshold, "Thanks for the hot chocolate and all of that."

Bella smiled, "Thanks for bringing by my wallet. And for not stealing my lunch money."

Edward laughed, "Who said I didn't?"

Bella's expression changed to one of mock shock as she playfully shoved Edward's shoulder. Edward smoothly hopped down the front steps and turned to walk toward his car. As had become customary, he called over his shoulder as he walked away, "Byeeeee Bella."

He quickly hopped into his shiny silver car and ripped out of the driveway as Bella stood on the front stoop, watching, slightly dumbstruck.

_Man, if he can afford that car, why on earth does he work at the ice-cream shop? _As soon as his car was out of sight, she closed the door, turning to lean her back against it.

Now, in the quiet house, alone with her thoughts, Bella's internal struggle bubbled to the forefront of her mind. _You do realize you're doing everything Rose advised you against doing, right? She said to stay away from people like Edward. She specifically NAMED Edward. And you? You're sighing dreamily every time he touches you and inviting him in for hot chocolate. You're an idiot. I don't want to hear you complain when this blows up in your face. _

She ran her hands through her hair and tugged at the tips as she looked around the house for something to keep her occupied, but her thoughts seemed intent on chasing her around the house.

_You only get one chance to make your name at a new school. You know full well what you need to do. You were practically given a road map by the fairy-godamazon. You're going to need to be a little more bold about this. Dress the part. Act the part. You can do this. _

Slightly amped up by her internal monologue, Bella decided it was time to be a little more proactive with her quest to popularity. She ran up to her room and skidded to a dead halt in front of her closet. Suddenly, being proactive seemed like a really daunting task. She'd never been much the fashionista in Arizona and she didn't know where to begin. She looked down at what she'd been wearing all day and thought back to what Rosalie had been wearing earlier. _I think you might be aiming a little high there, kid. _She was beginning to resent the tone her inner voice was taking with her. She frowned as she swung open her closet doors and stepped into the reasonably sized walk-in closet. The clothing she'd brought from Arizona barely took up 3/4 of one of the bars in her closet. She practically had no clothing at all. She looked around dismally and sighed. Her shoe selection was limited to two pairs of converse sneakers that had seen better days. She had packed light, leaving behind most of her dresses and fancy shoes, or "deathtraps" as she liked to call them. Most of the clothing up on the bar was not appropriate for the Fork's climate and she knew eventually it would come down to having to do something she dreaded - shopping.

She stepped out of her closet and began to scour her room, trying to remember where she had placed her stash-tin. She kept all of her most important possessions in this beat up old tin she'd found among her grandmother's belongings a few years ago. Anything she didn't want found, she put in her tin.

She ran to her book shelf and reached in between the worn copies of her Jane Austen novels. Bingo. She hurriedly opened the tin and pulled out the wad of cash sitting inside, counting it out loud, bill by bill. She had managed to save up $2,300 dollars in birthday and Christmas money over the years and was going to put it towards a real car, one that had been manufactured after her father had been born and one that didn't make the earth rumble when she started the ignition. Oh well, unless she could get a wardrobe-fund donation from her father, she'd probably put this money to wardrobe-use.

She shoved half the wad into her desk drawer, placed the remainder in her tin and decided she would take a trip to Port Angeles tomorrow. And she would ask Rose to accompany her.

* * *

The following morning, Bella awoke before her alarm clock. She hadn't admitted it to herself yet, but she was anxious about approaching Rosalie for help. It would probably be easier to rope Jessica Stanley into coming along but Bella didn't trust that Jessica wouldn't pick things that would make her look ridiculous.

Bella hopped out of bed and decided to put her time to good use. She rushed into the bathroom, made quick work of her shower and then looked around the bathroom at what she had on hand. She spotted her blow drier on the wire rack by the sink and some curlers on the hutch over the toilet. She decided to take the blow drier for a test run.

Hair done, and still in her bathrobe, she ran down stairs and prepared some french toast for Charlie and put some coffee on the pot. She ran back up to sort through the slim pickings in her closet. She settled in on her favorite pair of jeans and a lace-trim tank top paired with a fitted cardigan.

_This'll just have to do. _

As she walked into the kitchen, she was greeted by Charlie's backside leaning over he sink, pouring his coffee. "Mornin', Bells. In a good mood this morning? This french toast is great." He turned and caught sight of Bella and his mug nearly toppled right out of his hand. He managed to regain a handle on his mug, but seemingly without thinking, he blurted, "What happened to your head?"

Bella frowned at her father's reaction and suddenly felt utterly ridiculous for having even tried to do something so stupid. She had never been good at these girly sorts of things and now realized how silly she must look. She could feel tears of frustration and embarrassment pricking at the sides of her eyes.

Panicked, Charlie quickly tried to undo what he had done. "No, no, Bells, it looks nice." He was patting the air with his palms, trying to quiet the onslaught of tears. When a single tear fell out of her eye, his panic escalated. "You misunderstood, I was just asking why it looked so different…"

Bella slumped down into a chair at the kitchen table. "You don't need to try and make me feel better," she said helplessly, "I know I look stupid and I shouldn't have even tried to do it."

Charlie grimaced and slid into the chair next to his weeping daughter. "Bella, I didn't mean that the way it came out. Go easy on your old man, I'm not using to having a girl around. I'm not very good at this stuff."

Bella looked up at her dad with wet eyes, and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "Its fine, Dad. I guess we're both learning together."

Charlie patted her back and rose to finish his breakfast. Bella decided she should probably mention to him that she planned to go shopping that afternoon in Port Angeles. After all, it wasn't exactly a quick trip down the road. She quickly formulated the statement in her mind, making sure it wouldn't sound like she was asking for permission. She absolutely had to make this trip and couldn't afford to leave the matter open to parental negotiation.

She cleared her throat to catch his attention, "I almost forgot to mention that I'll be home late today, Dad."

Charlie's head perked up slightly, "Oh yeah? How come, kiddo?"

"Well, I was going to head into Port Angeles to do some shopping this afternoon. I have some money saved that I want to use for some Forks-appropriate clothing."

"Oh, well.." Charlie patted his hand over his back pocket, locating his wallet and pulling it out. Bella's eyes widened as he pulled out several large bills.

"Here you go." Charlie handed the money over to Bella and stepped back over to his breakfast. "Don't spend it all in one place."

Bella looked down at the wad of money and back up at her dad. And then back down at the money again. Mouth agape, she didn't know what to say, so she slowly got up from her seat, walked over to her dad and gave him a tight hug. Charlie froze where he stood, allowing Bella to do all the hugging before he awkwardly patted the arm she had wrapped around his shoulder.

Bella released her father and saw that he had turned a delightful shade of pink. She giggled to herself as she suddenly realized where she must have inherited it from. She turned and ran out of the kitchen and toward her bedroom. She quickly dropped the new cash in with her other shopping money, safely in her desk drawer, tied all of her hair back into a casual pony tail, grabbed her bag and hauled off to school.

Before she'd even realized it, it was lunch time. The entire day had gone by smoothly and without incident and she was relieved that there hadn't been any major mishaps.

Bella arrived at the cafeteria early for lunch and sat apprehensively as close as possible to where she had seen Rosalie sitting the day before. She opened up her sandwich and laid out all of her lunch foods systematically in a ritualistic little fashion. She was somewhere between placing her granola bar to the left of her napkin and lining her string cheese up to her fork when she heard a soft thud to her side. She looked over and saw a salad in tupperware sliding several inches across the table and Rose's designer-clad leg sliding in to the bench next to her. Bella looked up and noticed that most of the table had filled in since she'd arrived, but she didn't see Mike and she hadn't seen Jessica all day either.

Not thinking much of it, she returned her attention to her intended target. "Hey Rose," she said nervously, "how's it going?"

Rose looked at Bella with a raised eyebrow. "Good, thanks. But what's eating you?"

Bella sighed deeply and went straight to the point. "Well, I was kind of going to ask a pretty big favor of you. I know we don't really know each other all that well yet, but you're pretty much the only person I trust enough to ask this."

Rose turned her body to give Bella her full attention, both eyebrows raised now, an expectant expression on her face.

Satisfied that she had hooked Rose's attention, Bella continued. "I was looking through my closet last night and realized that I don't really have any clothes. Thing is, if I have to go shopping, I want to go buy stuff that will look good. Get me noticed, you know? I'm not generally very good at this dress-up stuff & I don't have anyone else to get opinions from, so I was wondering if…"

"If I'll go shopping with you to help you pick out a new wardrobe?" Rose finished the the rant for her, cutting straight to the chase since it didn't appear that Bella would be doing that any time soon.

"Basically, yeah," Bella answered sheepishly, cringing internally at how awkward she must've sounded.

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," Rose said with a smile. "I never pass up the opportunity to play with a life sized Barbie."

Bella puffed air out of her cheeks with an expression that reflected sheer relief. "That's awesome. Would you by chance be free this afternoon?"

"Actually, I am." Rose looked at her cell phone and keyed something in quickly. "There, you're officially on my calendar. But why wait? Lets just ditch the last two periods."

Bella's eyes widened. She'd never been a truant a day in her life. How EXCITING! She nodded enthusiastically, nearly giddy.

It wasn't until lunch was ending that Jessica surfaced from who-knows-where, looking flushed and wrinkled. She came up to Bella to chat for a few minutes, smelling rather distinctly of a strong men's cologne. While Bella was trying to place the scent, Jessica giggled dismissively and excused herself to head to class.

Once the cafeteria had cleared out, Bella and Rose walked casually past the front office and off to the student parking lot. Bella turned to Rose with an exhilarated expression, "I've never done anything like this before!"

Rose shushed Bella and ducked behind the car, "And you never will again, if you don't keep it down!"

Bella slapped her hand over her mouth, "D'oh, sorry, sorry. Do you mind if we just take your car? I suspect my truck will alert the entire town that we've left."

Rose, still laughing from Bella's adrenaline-fueled outburst, nodded in agreement. "Lets do it."

And so they did.


	7. Chapter 6

All of my work is unbeta'd, so I apologize in advance for any errors my eyes might have missed, as well as for all of the time that has elapsed since the posting of the last chapter.

As with every chapter -

**Disclaimer: ** These characters are not mine to own, merely to use in good fun.

* * *

"I can't believe I'm actually skipping class!" said Bella, eyes alight with excitement. Rose and Bella were pulling out of Bella's house after having gone in to retrieve the shopping money.

Rose laughed, "You really have led a sheltered life, haven't you?"

Bella flushed, embarrassed. "How obvious is it?"

Rose shot her an sidelong glance, "You may as well have an enormous sign over your head. Blinking. With neon lights."

Bella snorted, "I'm hopeless."

"Its endearing," Rose grinned at Bella warmly and Bella saw, in that smile, the makings of a good friendship.

"I'll have you know that I actually placed our date on my cell phone calendar," Rose dangled her phone in front of Bella's face. "Only important appointments make it on _the calendar_. Feel special." As Rose placed her cell back in cup holder, she added "By the way, I hope you don't mind, but I called in some reinforcements while you were grabbing your cash. My friend Alice will be joining us at the stores." She snapped her gum, "Trust me, a more hardcore shopper, you've never met. She actually keeps maps of all the local malls in a binder next to her bed. Its that serious. "

Bella nodded happily, "I'm sure you're going to need all the help you can get today."

Rose shook her head smirking and rolling her eyes, "We won't even break a sweat. You're already half way there, we just need to step up your game a little."

Bella bit her bottom lip, "You think that's all it'll take? I've never been that proficient in _girlyness_." Bella enunciated the word as if it tasted poorly in her mouth. "I have zero experience with this stuff and its making me nervous."

"Why would you be nervous?" Rosalie looked at Bella incredulously, "Its not like you've had any trouble at school dressing and looking the way you do now."

Bella shrugged and looked down into her lap. "Eh, I don't know. I didn't have many friends back in Arizona." She paused and took a deep breath, "And by not many, I mean none. I'd like to make the most of my last 2 years of high school. I want to look back at these years and know that I lived them up. I want to to look back and say 'They could have made a freakin' movie out of my life'. Oh, and let's not even get into my painful lack of romantic experience. I'm 17, how much longer do I have to wait for a dude to notice me? The only thing I know about romance and men comes from the books I read. And most of those books were written in the 1800s! I think I'm socially impaired. And oh my God, that was a really loaded response and probably a lot more than you wanted to know." Bella grimaced and sunk a little lower into her seat.

Rosalie fought to choke back her laughter which made Bella grimace even more. "Woaaaah, B, RELAXXXX! Its not that serious. The only quality you're insanely lacking in is confidence. Once you own that, you own all."

Bella rolled her eyes, "You make that sound so easily."

Rosalie shot Bella a look. "It should be easy. You're pretty, you're smart and you're actually pretty funny. The sooner you start believing that, the sooner everyone else will see it. Maybe the kids in Arizona were stupid or something, but I will say this: obviously, ever since you got here, you've had people tripping all over themselves to get a chance to just stand next to you." Rosalie paused for dramatic effect. "Er, wait. Never mind, that was you doing all the tripping."

"Ha-ha-ha. That's funny," Bella shot back sarcastically.

Rosalie snickered and gave Bella a little shove. "Oh c'mon, admit it. That was funny."

Bella pursed her lips, supressing a smile, "Maybe a little bit. But that's the first and last time I'll admit it, and will, from here forward, deny it to my death."

Rosalie giggled. "I'm glad you asked me to come shopping with you, B. This is fun."

Bella's face broke out into a full-on grin now. "I'm glad I did too. I'm actually kind of excited to see what you're going to do to me now."

"Oh, I've been visualizing it since we left school," said Rose excitedly. "You have no idea how easy it'll be to work with all of your natural features. It's like having all the parts to build a Ferrari."

"Shoot, I'd have been happy with Pinto," laughed Bella.

"Tut, tut, my dear. Lesson one: When you aim, aim high," said Rose, a little haughtily, straightening up in her seat and lifting her nose into the air ever so slightly.

Bella wondered if now wouldn't be a good time to get some opinions, woman to woman, on her situation with Mike. She sighed quietly and considered how she could work one of her burning questions into the conversation without sounding nosey.

She decided on a direct approach. "Rose, would you consider Mike Newton 'aiming high'?" Bella would have normally been a little embarrassed to ask such a transparent question, but she felt her trust and confidence in Rosalie quickly building the more she talked with her.

Rose looked pensive for a moment. "No, I don't think so. It's not like he's out of your league or anything."

"Well, what is my league?" Bella wrung her hands nervously, holding on to each word Rose spoke.

Rosalie puckered her mouth in momentary thought. "Well, lets map this out. Fork's High's social circles are hierarchical. In my opinion, the only tiers that matter start at jock and work their way up to the tip of the pyramid. Mike would be considered Fork's High high-tier, to be sure, and that's a notch above jock. But Mike will never be one of the elite. Elite would be unattainable to him. With you, I think its too soon to tell where you'll end up. That's all about playing your cards right."

Bella's brow furrowed,"What makes an elite person….well, elite?"

"They're choosy about who they associate with and even choosier about who they date. They come from the more prestigious families in Forks - not that there are many. But Mike…Mike really doesn't seem to have the self-restraint to be elite."

Bella looked at Rose quizzically, "What do you mean by self-restraint?"

"He's a friendly guy, B. He likes to be liked. Some grimy girls in our class occasionally use this to their advantage and those associations end up tarnishing his rep," Rosalie stated casually.

Bella chewed the inside of her cheek as she mulled this over.

"Why, do you like him?" Rose looked at Bella with an eyebrow raised.

"Well…kind of, I guess," Bella blurted out and then flushed a light pink, "I mean, I don't really know him but I feel like there's potential there, you know?" Bella wasn't quite ready to share the fluttering stomach feelings and her excitement that this could be he first boyfriend. She already felt foolish enough.

Rosalie's expression tightened. "If you like him, then go for it, B. Its not like its going to hurt."

Bella understood that Rosalie's comment was directed at her reputation more than anything. Not wanting to fixate on that particular topic, Bella decided it was high time to change it and, a little thoughtlessly, Bella mentioned the first thing that came to mind. "So, I saw Edward again at the ice cream shop yesterday."

Rose rolled her eyes dramatically and Bella regretted even uttering Edward's name, remembering that Rose would not approve of her fascination with him.

Rosalie sighed and added, "And what did my spastic brother have to say for himself?"

"Technically, I was the spastic one," Bella pointed out, with her fingers raised slightly in opposition. Rosalie laughed at this. "He was working and I was there waiting for Mike. I noticed that he's not a big fan of Mike's though."

Rose bit the inside of her cheek, "No, Edward and Mike don't much care for each other anymore."

"Anymore?" Bella was surprised at this development.

"Yeah. They used to be best of friends back in elementary school and middle school." Rosalie shrugged casually, "They were practically inseparable, really."

"Well, looking at them now, they'd certainly make an unlikely pair. What happened between then and now?"

Rose sighed and chanced a glance at Bella. "This conversation does not leave this car, do you hear me?"

Bella nodded.

"No, I'm serious, Bella. I don't make it a habit of sharing other people's stories. Not anymore, at least."

Bella nodded emphatically.

Satisfied, Rosalie pressed on. "Edward and Mike met on the first day of third grade and hit it off instantly. They were both obsessed with baseball and sports cars and those typical boy things and that was the basis of their friendship. By the fifth grade, they were inseparable and Mike used to stay over every weekend. He'd even call my mother 'mom'. The funny thing about Edward and Mike was…Edward was the popular, well-liked, well-known boy and Mike was always kind of considered his shadow. Edward's never been one to put a lot of stock in his own PR, but Mike loved the recognition he gained through his association with Edward and, with that, had eventually built his own name, I guess.

"But anyway, by middle school, when girls started coming into the picture, everyone realized that Mike and Edward's interests were shared there too. They always seemed to zero in on the same. chick. Every. Time. Edward, not wanting to cause tension, would usually just back off and let Mike do his thing. Mike, however, was never willing to back off of anything and one day, that actually became a problem."

Bella looked at Rosalie with a knitted brow and encouraged her to go on.

Rosalie cleared her throat, "There was this girl, Tanya, that Edward met while he was away at summer camp one year. She came from a REALLY good family and she was pretty and accomplished in her music. See, Edward has this geeky thing - he loves the piano and he had actually wanted to go to a music camp during the summer after his 7th grade year… But yeah, Edward was smitten with Tanya all sumer and he courted her and would send her letters and flowers and things once camp was over, since she lived something like 45 minutes away from Forks. There was this big kick-off party at the start of 8th grade where Edward had decided he would ask Tanya to be his girlfriend, like a proper gentleman. Her parents drove her down for the party and he had this whole big night planned out. When they got to the party, Edward was finally able to physically introduce Tanya to Mike, his best friend who he'd, of course, told all about Tanya. Edward walked off to get some punch and came back to find Mike and Tanya on the dance floor, grinding dirty to some hip hop song."

Bella gasped, heartbroken for eighth-grade Edward.

Rosalie nodded and proceeded. "Edward, furious, stormed off to the bathroom and, after splashing some water on his face, returned a short while to address what he had seen. He was even willing to maybe dismiss it as just dancing, until he found Tanya and Mike making out by the stairwell. As you can imagine, that was the end of that relationship and that friendship. After that night, he and Mike never uttered another word to each other. And Mike never even bothered to call Tanya, either. He ruined their friendship for a quick make-out sesh by the stairs."

Bella was listening to this story in absolute disgust. She couldn't believe the things Mike was capable of. "I had no idea Mike could be such a bastard," she half-whispered.

"Oh yeah, that was Edward's first major heartbreak and it came at the hands of his supposed best friend," replied Rosalie sympathetically. "But that was years ago already and there's really no reason by Edward had to go all antidisestablishmentarianist on the entire family and start acting like a freak. I mean, Bella, I love my brother but he makes such a spectacle of himself at school. Its like he does everything possible to embarrass me, and he does it SO WELL." Her tone had morphed from sympathetic to aggravated in two seconds flat. "And its not just me, either. The Cullen family has a reputation to uphold and he does nothing but hinder that."

Bella now understood what enraged Rosalie so much about her brother. He was nothing like her and she was angry about it. Her whole life was the Fork's "high society" crowd. She was an aspiring socialite and her brother, who apparently had the capacity to be one too, had zero interest in such silly things. Its as if he rebelled against everything Mike and Rose and Tanya stood for.

Armed with this new understanding, Bella decided on two things. 1.) The Mike thing wasn't going to go anywhere and 2.) Nothing was going to stop her from getting to know Edward Cullen.

* * *

Working on a new chapter already. If anyone is still reading this, thanks for sticking around. Reviews & feedback are appreciated.


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